


Don't Call Me Sweetheart

by CrackingLamb



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Rare-Pair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-02-17 17:57:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13082226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: Hancock is missing and Fahrenheit's pissed.  The SS better strap on his big boy boots if he hopes to make it out of this in one piece.





	1. Chapter 1

The pounding on Thaniel’s door woke him and he rolled over and groaned. It was dark outside, true dark, not the shadowed kind that meant the sun had passed behind the surrounding buildings of Goodneighbor. According to the chronometer on his Pip-Boy, currently resting on top of the long dresser, it was just past 4 in the morning. Thaniel groaned again as he shuffled out of bed and stumbled through the living room, banging his hip against the pool table hard enough to make the balls clack on the felt. He went down the stairs, hollering at whoever the fuck had the temerity to bang on his door in the middle of the fucking night…

“Fahrenheit,” he said stupidly when he opened his door to her fist raised to bang on it again, her orange red hair swept back and her normally stoic expression clouded by something like anger. Or maybe it was worry. It certainly couldn’t be fear.

“Is he here?” she snarled without greeting.

“What…?”

“Have you seen him?”

“What…?” he asked again, dumbfounded that a) she was at his door, and b) she was pushing him aside to get in it.

“Hancock, have you seen him?”

“No, I…no he isn’t here.”

“Damnit,” she spat, flipping the lights on as she strode up into his home in Goodneighbor as if she owned it.

“What…what you doing here, Fahrenheit?” He followed her up the stairs and slouched against the wall as she made herself at home on the wraparound sofa that took up a whole quarter of the usable space.

“Duh, looking for Hancock.”

“Why would you be looking for him _here_?” he stressed, pointing at the floor.

“I’ve looked everywhere else,” she said with a sigh. “He never made it home, he’s not at the Rail, or the Memory Den, or even the Rexford.”

“You wanna drink?” he asked after a moment and turned into his kitchen to pull out a bottle of bourbon and some cleanish glasses. Nothing like a little late night guilt to go with his late night visitor. He hadn’t known Hancock didn’t make it back to Goodneighbor after their…disagreement; he hadn’t even checked to see.

“What happened, Thaniel? Give it to me straight.”

It was Thaniel’s turn to sigh as he dropped down onto the sofa next to her, pouring a healthy shot for each of them. Leave it to her to figure out something had happened. She was clever, this bodyguard. “We were ambushed outside Covenant. Raiders. I tossed a grenade. No big whoop. I guess there was a trader in the mix, I never saw the Brahmin, I swear. Well the trader bought it in the explosion. Hancock had some choice words, and then he left me there.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” she shot back, as if she didn’t believe him.

“All right, maybe it wasn’t the first time it happened. But c’mon, have you been out there? Choosing to walk the roads without damn good armor is suicide, one way or the other. I can’t be held accountable for every innocent that gets their fool head in the way. What the fuck kind of idiot doesn’t run at the first sign of a fight between rivals?”

“He takes that kind of thing pretty personal,” she said after a while.

“Evidently.”

“Shit, well, I guess I gotta go find him.”

“Need help?”

She sneered at him. “Why would I want your help? You’re the reason he’s out there in the first place.”

“All the more reason for me to make it right. Look, sweetheart, I’m no angel, I admit it. But Hancock is a good guy and I would hate myself if something happened to him.”

“Fine.” Fahrenheit down her bourbon and stood up. “But put some clothes on first, would ya?”

Thaniel looked down at himself and realized he’d answered the door in nothing but his own skin.

“And don’t call me that,” Fahr shouted up the stairs before the door banged shut behind her.

***

“So, here we are at Covenant,” Thaniel said unnecessarily.

“I can see that,” Fahrenheit drawled. She hadn’t gotten any more pleasant to him as the day wore on and he was tired from being woken up so rudely but…fuck it all to hell and back, when did she start growing on him? He caught himself smiling at her sour expression. Like it was cute or something.

“The fight was there,” he pointed down the road, where raider bodies could still be seen laying on the ground where they’d fallen. The pair of them walked that way, although Thaniel wasn’t sure what the red haired woman was looking for.

“Which way did he go when he left?” she asked, calmer than before. He pointed. West, heading in the general direction of Starlight Drive-In. “Then let’s get going.”

She marched off, following in her boss’s footsteps, Thaniel shaking his head behind her. He wasn’t looking at her ass. He wasn’t.

“He could be anywhere,” he said after a while. Fahrenheit threw him a dirty look over her shoulder, her flaming hair whipping into her eyes as a breeze picked up.

“Yeah, he could be,” she said. “We’re still gonna go lookin’ until we find him.”

Thaniel rubbed the bridge of his nose. He needed a drink.

Under a crumbling overpass of the highway they found the synths…well, they found what was left of the synths. “Shotgun blasts,” Fahrenheit said.

Thaniel smirked. The Gen-1’s had been chewed up pretty good, and not too long ago judging by the fact that they were still sparking. It had happened some time in the last day. Still, that didn’t mean it was Hancock. He saw the glint of something metal sticking out of one of the robotic bodies and pulled it up to find it was the broken blade of a combat knife.

“Uh…Fahr…” _Well, shit_ , he thought.

She came over to his side and looked it over. She nodded, both morose and defiant in a single glance, confirming his guess. “It’s his. Man, he’s gotta be pissed that it broke. Shit.”

“I don’t see any blood or anything.”

“No, I don’t either.”

“He could be anywhere.” She glared at him, her eyes hard as flint. He knew he was repeating himself, but he couldn’t help it. One would think finding a ghoul wearing a bright red coat would be easy, but this was the Commonwealth, and nothing was _ever_ easy.

“You thinkin’ you can call it a day because we found some dead synths?” she shot at him.

He glared back. “Why are you so worried anyway? He can hold his own.”

“It’s my job,” she said, but Thaniel caught the momentary look in her eye. She went to stalk past him, to continue searching, but he grabbed her arm.

“There’s more to it than that.”

She made a face and huffed. She slumped against a tree and lit up a cigarette with a match, flicking the sulfur end with her thumb in a neat trick that Thaniel had only ever seen Hancock do before. “When he gets pissed off he wanders. Sometimes he overdoses. Sometimes he rampages.” She dragged hard on the cigarette before turning her face back to Thaniel. “Sometimes he does all three. And then he gets sloppy and he gets hurt. Do you have any fucking idea how many times I’ve pulled his ass out of the fire?”

“No,” Thaniel replied, quietly and without heat. Fahr was itching for a fight, he could read it in every line of her body. Again, just like Hancock. He’d never spent that much time with her before, and had never realized just how like her boss she was. Deliberate mimicry or just the result of constant proximity? Either way it was distracting in a way that wasn't completely unpleasant, if a bit inappropriate to the circumstances.

“Too many,” she snapped, tossing the butt away. “C’mon, Vaultie, let’s keep moving.”

***

Starlight’s residents hadn’t seen him, and it was getting dark. Thaniel wanted to stop and get some sleep, but Fahrenheit needed convincing.

“I need to find him,” she spat, pacing the confines of Thaniel’s personal space inside the huge screen overlooking the Drive-In.

“We’ll be no good to him if we get ambushed by raiders or Gunners in the dark. Now stop.”

“But…”

“Would you just sit down? Look, I made dinner.” Thaniel put a couple plates of radstag and tatoes down on the rusty old table he’d salvaged from the top of the screen, along with the patio chairs he’d set up around it like a café nook. He popped open a couple beers and handed one to the pacing redhead. Fahr took the beer and thumped into the chair across from his with a grunt. She threw back an impressive gulp before starting on the food.

“Huh, you’re not a half bad cook.”

“Gee, thanks, sweetheart,” he replied.

“I mean it. Most Vault dwellers don’t know a cook fire from their ass. I’m impressed.” She took another bite before pointing her fork at him. “And don’t call me that.”

“Sorry, it’s a habit. Anyway, living on military rations forces one to get creative.”

“What was it like…ya know…before the War?”

Thaniel looked around for a moment, trying to think of something to say. He didn’t think she was looking for bland reminiscences of the perfection of the pre-war world. And he had none to give her anyway. He was a soldier, first and foremost. Losing Nora in the Vault and knowing his baby boy was out there somewhere…it had changed him, made him harder than he had been before. He had no illusions that his marriage was perfect, or that he was even a good father for that matter. He had discovered he was well suited to this harsh environment, to the violence and chaos. He liked it even. In his heart of hearts, he knew he preferred this world to the old one. Bloody justice and few rules. It was his style.

“Well, the power still worked,” he said finally. She snorted delicately, swigging her beer. He joined her for a moment before lapsing back into thought. “The world was a mess. Oh, it was pretty enough on the surface, but underneath was all rot.”

“A shiny new coat of paint on the same old shit?” she asked somewhat sardonically.

“Yeah…” He sighed and scraped up the remains of his meal onto his fork, shoveling it in. He’d gone without food enough times to never leave a meal unfinished, no matter how full he was…or at least, how not hungry he was. “And there was always something to fear. The Red Chinese, our own government, you name it. People were sheep.”

“What’s a sheep?”

“Oh…uh…it was a farm animal, it’s where wool comes from. _Came_ from, I guess. Dumb as a box of rocks and blindly following the one in front. No individual thought.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good description for a lot of people.” She leaned back in the patio chair and finished off her beer. “You mind if I smoke?”

“Go for it. It’s not like they’re gonna kill ya any faster than anything else out here.”

She quirked a grin at that and lit up with an expression of satisfaction. “I don’t get to travel as much as I used to. Time was, I knew the whole Commonwealth like the back of my hand.” She looked at her hand as she spoke, absently rubbing her fingers across her freckled knuckles. “Once I found Hancock, I just sort of…stayed.”

“What’s the deal with you two anyway?” Thaniel asked. He’d always been curious, but he had never wanted to ask Hancock. It seemed too personal a thing to ask a guy who was only traveling with him because he wanted to get out of town for a while. Thaniel could appreciate the sentiment, and honestly he liked Hancock. They didn’t always see eye to eye, but hell if he wasn’t a better companion than any of the others he’d met since waking up. Thaniel just didn’t have it in him to be a goody goody.

Fahr looked at him across the table and shook her head. “Nah, that’s a story for another time. Assuming you live that long.”

“I’ve made it this far,” he said with a sigh.

“Yeah, I guess you have. Good job, little pawn. I thought for sure the wasteland would spit out your bones in the first week. But ya got guts, and you certainly know your way around a hefty weapon.” She nodded her head at his modded out combat rifle. “You do those yourself?”

“Yeah. I like to tinker.”

“Nothin’ better than making a deadly weapon deadlier.”

“You’re right about that.” He looked at her with a new appreciation, and she seemed to be doing the same judging from the gleam in her eye. Again, it was distracting. They didn’t have time for this. Not that he’d ever even thought about it before she showed up at his door. “Well, time to bunk down, I guess. You take the bed. I got a sleeping bag.”

“Not gonna try to sneak one in on me, little pawn? I’m almost disappointed.” She was sneering, but it lacked her usual level of disdain, almost as if she was teasing him. He shook his head and wondered why he was even bothering with the gentlemanly shit. All right, so he knew _why_ , he just didn’t want to examine it too closely.

He stood and gathered the plates and silverware together, piling them in the tiny sink he’d rigged up. “Get some sleep, Fahr. We’ll head out first thing.”

“Sure,” she replied. He left here there, grabbing his bag and heading out to the store room at the other end of the theater screen.

 _Shit_ , he thought. _This is a whole heap of trouble_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a wonderful, safe and happy holidays, AO3!

“Damnit!”

Thaniel cracked opened one eye and wondered for the briefest moment what he was doing in his store room at Starlight before the shout registered in his mind as being Fahrenheit’s. He sat up in the sleeping bag and groaned. He was too old to be sleeping on the ground in a lumpy sleeping bag for fuck’s sake. The door to the store room banged back on its hinges and sunlight flooded the small space, limning the figure standing there with a nimbus.

 _Pity the attitude doesn’t match the image_ , he thought.

“Morning, Fahr,” he croaked, levering himself to a standing position.

“Jesus…fuck…put your damned clothes on!” She stomped back out into the sunlight, her back turned to him and he wanted to laugh, he really did. This was twice she’d gotten an eyeful. He might be tempted to feel insulted that she didn’t seem interested in the said eyeful, but it was just too funny how she reacted. She lived with Hancock, surely she was used to seeing naked people, right? “Why the hell did you let me sleep so late?”

“What time is it, anyway?” He reached for his Pip-Boy before his clothes – on purpose, of course. 7:58 AM. “Fahr, really? This is late to you? Somehow I doubt that keeping Hancock’s hours.”

“You know what? Fuck you.” Her shadow moved away from the doorway but Thaniel could hear her kicking at stray tin cans and swathes of grass. He gave into his laughter before dressing as quickly as he could manage given his sore and still exhausted state. Then he joined her in the sun.

“Ugh, I am too old for this shit,” he muttered under his breath, blinking in the strong sunlight. Go figure, the one sunny day in the Commonwealth was the one he was stuck with a literal red haired virago.

“Focus, little pawn. Hancock isn’t here, so where would he have gone?”

“Maybe he was heading towards Sanctuary,” he said carefully, trying to think. His stomach grumbled and he went back into the store room to find something to eat. Fahr followed him.

“Why would he do that?”

Thaniel shrugged. He didn’t go there much these days himself, mostly to keep out of Cait’s way. Now there was a woman he didn’t want to think about again. It had started out fine, tearing a fine path through the raiders and Gunners of the ‘Wealth, high on whatever they could find. The sex had been pretty good too, different from what he’d had with Nora. But when the cage fighter decided to go clean, all the fun in their relationship went clean too until they couldn’t even muster up the fucks to fuck. Now she stayed in Sanctuary Hills and he…did not.

“Here.” He handed Fahr an unopened package of Dandy Boy Apples and scrounged up a tin of Cram for himself. He didn’t much care for the stuff, but it was better than bloatfly. Hell, even radroach was better than bloatfly.

“This shit is terrible for you, ya know.”

“Yeah, I know. The rads.”

Fahr snorted. “No, it has no nutritional value.”

But he heard the packaging open just the same and when he turned around to face her she was wolfing them down like there was no tomorrow. He peeled back the top of the Cram and picked at it with the end of his switchblade, trying hard not to grimace at the overwhelming saltiness and gelatinous outer coating. It was much more palatable when heated, but he didn’t think she wanted to waste any more time since apparently eight in the morning was ‘late’.

“Ready?” she asked, almost as if on cue.

“Sure.” They followed the train tracks northwards and came across Drumlin Diner, where Trudy had at least seen Hancock three days ago, heading north himself. But she couldn’t tell them where he was headed since she didn’t talk to him, just watched him go by. He wasn’t hurt at least, she was able to say.

“Well, that’s a relief.”

Thaniel looked over at Fahrenheit with some surprise. He had this idea of her that she was all hard edges and cool animosity. Backed up by a very large minigun. But there was warmth in her too that he’d never noticed. Or maybe that she rarely showed. It made him thoughtful as he followed her up the road towards Sanctuary Hills.

***

The chain link fence of Wicked Shipping came into view as they walked by and he tapped her shoulder, earning himself a glare before she slowed down enough to let him speak. “Wanna check and make sure he’s not in there?”

“Is there a reason he might be?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Not exactly, but you wanted to be thorough, right?”

“Fine.” She stomped towards the shipping yard before he could warn her of the ferals and sure enough, he heard her shout and her minigun spinning up as she mowed them down. When he caught up to her finishing off the last one – a Glowing One at that – she gave him a frowning glare that was much more serious than the last glare she’d given. “Why didn’t you say anything about it being inhabited?”

“Why didn’t you slow the fuck down enough for one fucking second so I could?”

“You got a real problem with language, little pawn.”

“Hey, _you_ barged into _my_ life, in the middle of the fucking night if you remember, and yet I still volunteered to come along on this little adventure to find a man who is more than likely already on his way back to Goodneighbor, and perfectly fine. If I want to be pissy about it, I will.”

“How do you even stand to look at yourself, Thaniel?” she asked, her voice soft and gentle. If anything, her soothing tone set him off even more. He didn’t want empathy from her, even her caustic brand of it.

“I don’t,” he spat at her.

“I mean, I guess I get it. The world’s changed, and everything you’ve known is gone, but why are you always so angry?”

“Why are you?”

She looked stunned. “I’m not angry,” she protested.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’ve rarely met an angrier woman than you. And I’ve known a few.” Nora’s image crossed his memory, the look on her face when he said he was going back into active service once she was fully recovered from having Shaun. He’d never gotten the chance, of course. The world had ended instead. He still wasn’t entirely sure he was glad or not that he’d survived, even if she hadn’t. Especially considering the fact that her death had nothing to do with the war at all.

Fahrenheit skirted the pile of dead ferals at her feet to get right into his face and whispered harshly, separating each word with emphasis, “Don’t call me that.”

For a second he thought about fighting the urge. For a moment he considered how terrible a decision it might be. Then he gave a mental fuck it and hauled her to him by the edge of her armor. He poured all his bitterness and fatigue and absolutely burning anger at the world into that kiss, punishing her with it. She stumbled when he let her go. He knew it was coming so he didn’t duck as she pulled back and slapped him across the face.

He didn’t apologize or say anything for that matter. He just stood and watched her. In that single instant he felt more alive than he had since he’d come home from Alaska. He didn’t need to ponder it, or analyze it for any reason. She was feisty and brutal and successful in an unforgiving world, and he wanted her. Simple as that. But he needed _her_ to want it too. Some small spark of humanity remained in him, and he needed her to want him as badly as he wanted her.

“Goddamnit,” she swore under her breath, staring at him still. Then she crossed the distance between them, slapped him again as hard as she could and before he could react, she grabbed his collar and kissed him back.

They stumbled and wrestled their way across the shipping yard, pulling at armor and buttons and sleeves until they banged up against one the abandoned cargo trucks. Thaniel hauled up the hatch and drew her with him into the confines, neither speaking. Only the harshness of her breaths mingling with his told him that the desire he felt for her was in any way reciprocated.

They didn’t even get naked; he just pulled her leather pants down around her knees and turned her around, bending her over a stack of wooden crates. He unbuttoned his jeans and reached in to pull his cock out before spreading her open with his hands.

“No backing down,” he said, braced against her heat. He was twitching against her and knew she could feel it by the way she squirmed.

“Just fucking fill me,” she ground out between her teeth, flashing him a look over her shoulder.

She was tighter than he expected and she made a small noise almost like distress as he stretched her to her limit. He backed off a bit, letting her adjust and get her breath. Then he plunged into her hard, forcing out a cry that rang against the metal walls of the truck and burying himself inside her to the hilt. She wasn’t fooling him; she was tight but she was wet just the same. He changed his stance, which shifted his angle inside her and she moaned instead and backed into him. Yeah, she wasn’t fighting it.

“God…” she breathed out, her knuckles turning white on the edge of the packing crates. “Thaniel…harder…”

He obliged, pounding into her until the zipper of his jeans left imprints on her ass. She groaned in time with each stroke, getting wetter with each one. But he wanted her to explode for him. He was a heartless bastard at times, but he wasn’t a selfish lover. He slipped a hand around her hip until he could reach between her legs to her clit, rubbing it back and forth. He stood completely still, letting her set the tempo and depth. She was sobbing now, each breath a cry as she fucked herself on his cock. He hadn’t heard anything – or felt anything for that matter – as good since he’d woken up in that cryopod.

When she came it was with silence, a gasping breath held as she tightened around his cock until it was nearly painful. He kept his fingers cupped against her overstimulated clit and he thrust himself to finish inside her. He came with a groan, bending over her back breathless and sweaty. He stayed inside her until he was soft and her aftershocks had stopped. When he finally pulled away he could see her face was flushed, but not with anger. He imagined his looked the same.

“Damn,” he said.

“What.”

“You’re something else, Fahr.”

“So glad you approve.” And there it was, that sarcastic edge he’d come to know and…love? No, not like that. Just… “Hey, you got a rag? I don’t much feel like walking around like this.”

“Uh, yeah.” He dug out a spare shirt from his pack and let her use it to clean herself up. He could wash it later. They dressed in silence, not an ashamed or abashed one, just quiet. Thoughtful, almost.

“Well,” she said once she had everything back in place. “He isn’t here.”

Just the dry obviousness of the statement made him burst out laughing. She didn’t glare at him this time, though, and actually looked like she wanted to join in.

“No, he isn’t,” Thaniel managed after a while. “C’mon, Sanctuary isn’t that far away.”

“Lead on then.”

“All right, sweetheart.” He strode back to the road and waited to hear it.

“Don’t call me that.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, AO3!

Hancock wasn’t in Sanctuary Hills, although he had been. It was at least a step in the right direction. Preston Garvey looked Thaniel over with a critical eye, and he wondered what the last Minuteman had heard, or had been told, about the incident leading up to Hancock’s abandonment of him.

“He packed up some things he said he needed, and then he was gone again. You’ve only missed him by a few hours.” Preston’s face was an open book, and the expression of disappointment and disdain for Thaniel was easily read.

“Thanks, Preston. I…I guess we’ll be going, then.”

“Sure.” If Fahr had not been there, Thaniel was sure Preston would have gotten on his case about the requests for aid he’d gotten from settlements scattered all over the Commonwealth, but since she was, he stayed silent on them. Thaniel was grateful for the respite. It wasn’t that he didn’t think the Minutemen were a noble cause; quite the contrary. He just didn’t think he was fit to lead them. He knew he wasn’t the kind of man Preston wanted him to be. Not yet anyway. Maybe someday…after he’d found his son…once he’d purged the violence and anger from his soul…maybe then he would be ready.

“You hungry?” Fahr asked as they meandered down the road towards the Red Rocket Truck Stop near Sanctuary. It was blessedly quiet, and Thaniel often stayed there instead of his old house, both for his own peace of mind and to keep out of Cait’s way.

“I could eat,” he replied.

“So…who was the redhead?” she asked casually as she went through the cupboards, finding some canned stuff to heat up.

“Hmm? Oh…um, Cait.” He had seen her eyeing them while he talked with Preston, but he hadn’t guessed that Fahrenheit had seen her too. It didn’t surprise him, however. He knew any bodyguard of Hancock’s was bound to be observant.

“She that cage fighter from the Combat Zone?”

“Yeah.”

“What is she doing way up here in the back of beyond?”

“We…we traveled together for a while.” Fahr stopped her aimless searching and studied his face, noting his closed off expression and hard eyes. She nodded and went back to finding a can opener. Thaniel felt mildly stung, but couldn’t explain why. He didn’t want to talk about Cait, but surely Fahr had questions, right? She found what she was looking for and dumped a can of Pork’N’Beans into a battered pot and put it on the stove he’d cobbled together from scrap. She lit a cigarette and stared off into space and he was content enough to let her. Finally, she spoke.

“I remember when Hancock was like you. Angry at everything, with nothing to pin it on but himself. You know he turned himself ghoul, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You gotta make peace with whatever it is, Thaniel, or it will eat you alive.”

“Maybe I want it to.”

She shook her head and snorted. “Nah, that’s no way to live. You turn into a monster that way.”

“It’s easier.”

She snorted back another laugh and looked him in the eye. “Sure. At first. Then you wake up one day and can’t stand the sight of your own face and you do something so stupid you’ll never outrun it.” She stirred the food and gave him her back. “You wanna let it out?”

“No.” He sighed and sank onto a barstool at the counter. The breeze picked up and he could smell a storm on it. _Great_ , he thought. _Now we get to slog back to Goodneighbor in the rain_. He focused back on Fahr. “No, I don’t really want to have it all out, but you evidently want to hear it. My wife’s dead, my son was stolen by the Institute and my world is so fucked up I don’t even know where to begin to fix it.”

“I’m sorry.” She sounded genuinely contrite, but he wasn’t in the mood now to hear it.

“Sure, everyone’s sorry about it. Doesn’t do jack shit to help though.” He let the bitterness bleed through and wondered how she’d react, but she didn’t say anything. She just scooped the Pork’N’Beans into two mismatched bowls and handed him one of them. He set his down so it could cool a bit and looked at his hands as if he’d never seen them before. “Sometimes I just don’t care anymore. Sometimes…I just want to eat a bullet and be done with it. Bury me with my wife. Let the world go down the drain without me.”

“You ever play chess?” she asked, soft and gentle.

“Sometimes the sacrificed piece is the king, Fahr.”

“Sometimes.” She looked him over, her light eyes shuttered but perceptive. “You sacrifice the king, the game’s over. You promote a pawn, and the game changes.”

“Is that what I am?”

“Ya know, Hancock is forever trying to get me to read those old books he keeps around. ‘Books are a ghoul’s best friends’ he likes to say. And I get that. And I get that a lot of history has been lost, and the world is a shit hole.” She stirred her food around idly, her eyes still on him. “It’s tough out here, living from day to day, never knowing where the next meal will come from, the next attack, the next calamity. Your friend there, is he a survivor of Quincy?”

“How’d you guess?”

“What, you think Goodneighbor’s just a town filled with ghouls who don’t know shit? You think it’s all about Hancock’s partying? We know things.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“The Minutemen were once proud and powerful. Then they were leaderless and weak. The game changed. They need a new pawn promoted.”

“It ain’t me.”

“It could be.”

“Leave it, Fahrenheit. I got enough shit on my plate already.”

“Yeah, you and every other washed up idiot on this wasted earth.” She sneered at him, the expression he knew so well from her. “Get over your shit, Thaniel. Everyone’s got shit. Some of us still try to make the world better.”

“Fine words from the bodyguard of a man who drinks like a fish, chems up like the sorriest addict to ever draw breath and fucks anything that gives him the time of day.”

“You’re in no position to judge him,” she snapped. “You think I don’t know what you got in that pack you hold onto like it’s a baby? You think I haven’t heard the bottles clinking away in there? You think I missed that look on Cait’s face when she saw me? What do you take me for, huh?”

“I said leave it, Fahr.”

“Fine, I’ll leave it. I’ll go back to Goodneighbor and leave you all alone with your pity party. I’ll try to act surprised when I come across your bleached bones.” She pushed away from the wall where she’d been leaning and stalked out, the set of her shoulders stiff and unyielding, her hair flapping around the side of her face like a curtain. He knew it wasn’t fair to take out his bitterness on her, but dammit, it wasn’t fair to wake up to this world either. He was thirty years old – _two hundred and forty_ , his brain said – and he had nothing to show for it other than a few skills that had kept him alive and a burning hole where his soul used to be. There wasn’t room in him to be anything else, to be worth anything else. Still…

He got up from the barstool and followed her out into the rain. “You know what?” he spat when he found her. “It’s easy for you, it’s easy to wake up in this shit hole and not know any different, because you don’t know any different. You don’t know what’s been lost. You have friends, people who look up to you, who respect you. You have a home, a place where you belong, and you know it too. I’ve got…nothing.”

“Believe it or not, Thaniel, I respect you.” The rain made a bedraggled mess of her hair and she shoved her hand through it, pushing it back out of her face. “Hancock does too, even if he’s pissed at you right now. You got friends, people who care about you. Jesus Christ, do you think I would have let you lay a finger on me if I didn’t?” She was nearly shouting now, her finger jabbed in his face.

“I…”

“Listen, you got a raw deal. You’re struggling, I see it. If you want to be too proud to ask for help, that’s your business. But if you keep insisting that nothing matters, that you can’t change any of it, go off and be a raider and leave the rest of us the fuck alone. I’ll see you at the end of my gun someday and I’ll mow you down just like you want. If that’s not the way you want this to end, pick up your goddamned bootstraps and get…over…your…shit!”

He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her. He hadn’t planned on it, and he was fully expecting her to slap him again. But she didn’t. She made a noise, somewhere between a groan and a snarl and grabbed his shirt front, holding him close. When he pulled his mouth away from hers, she stepped into his embrace and held him. There in the rain, he hugged her close and had to squeeze his eyes shut against the burn of tears he felt.

“All right, Fahr,” he said quietly, so quietly he could barely hear himself over the punishing storm. “All right. Will you help me?”

“Yes,” she replied, muffled into his shirt. She sounded like she was crying, but that couldn’t be right. A woman like her didn’t cry, not over a man like him.

“Let’s find him, and then…” He gusted out a sigh, and gave in. “Then, I’ll make things right.”

She tipped her head back and looked at him. “You fucking better. You bet your ass I’ll kill you if you don’t. And not in any pleasant way.”

It startled a laugh out of him and just because he could he traced along the burn on her face with gentle fingertips. His lips curved into a smile that felt foreign it had been so long since he’d let it out and he turned his head into the rain, letting it wash him down. “Can we at least wait until after the storm passes? I hate walking through mud.”

“Sure, little pawn.”


	4. Chapter 4

Goodneighbor’s streets were empty when they arrived, but that was probably due to the radstorm that had kicked up just as they passed by Trinity Tower. They hadn’t wanted to wait it out, so they both popped a Rad-X and hustled through the ruins until they saw the sickly glow of the neon signs outside the walls. Fahr hurried him into the State House, where the radiation laced lightning couldn’t reach and they stood there, heaving for air and feeling relief that they’d gotten back in one piece.

“Well, look who it is,” drawled the gravelly voice of Hancock at the top of the spiral stairs. “Thought I made myself plain, Vault dweller.”

“Hancock, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you should be.” The ghoul’s gaze moved from Thaniel to Fahr and he frowned. “What’s this about?”

“You were missing,” she clipped. “We were looking for you.”

“You know better.”

“I know you get into a ton of shit if I’m not watching you.” He waved her off and went back into his living room.

Thaniel followed her up the stairs, wondering exactly how much it was going to take to smooth this out. He truly did like Hancock better than almost anyone else he’d met in the Commonwealth, and he knew he had to make amends. He had to do better.

“As you can see, I’m fine,” Hancock said, his back to them both as he tapped the glass of a phial of Med-X. “Just needed a few things.”

“We saw,” Fahr said, holding up the broken combat knife. “The pair of you, I swear to God. Both of you have tempers like a gasoline fire.”

“You’d know,” he retorted. “You know what he did?”

“Yeah, I know what he did. You know what you did?”

He finally turned to face them, his face set and angry. Thaniel knew he deserved it and didn’t back down from it. “How ‘bout you let him do the talking, since I assume that’s why you brought him here?”

“Not much I can say, Hancock. I already said I was sorry. I’ll try to do better. I’m not perfect.”

“You’re a sorry excuse for a hero, is what you are.”

“Ya know, I never claimed to be a hero. You all want to make me into one. I just want to find my son and avenge my wife.”

“Killin’ everything in between ain’t the best way to accomplish that, Thaniel.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you don’t care.”

“Enough,” Fahrenheit snapped, going so far as to put her hands up between them before Thaniel could reply. “You talk a lot of shit, Hancock, but you know you’re no better. Get off your high moral horse for a second and remember what it was like when you were just a drifter with a chem problem. Think about what it’s like to wake up to find everything you ever knew and loved is dead and ashes. Don’t be so quick to judge when you…”

“Don’t go there, Fahr,” Hancock warned.

“I will go there,” she stand, standing her ground. “God knows I put up with you and your habits. God knows the miles I’ve walked to be at your side, because I trusted you and wanted what you want. You have never once on your best day been completely perfect. But I stayed.”

“Yeah, you did,” Hancock murmured with a sigh. “Listen, Vaultie, you got moxie walkin’ back in here. You obviously pulled some charm on Fahr to get on her good side, and I don’t even want to know how. She’s a big girl, and she can take care of herself. But between you and me? I will not abide the slaughter of innocents to get at your goal, no matter how righteous. So I think we’re done here. You clean up your act, maybe we'll talk again, but for now...”

“Fine,” Thaniel said. “I’ll stay out of your way for now.”

“But…” Fahrenheit started. He pressed a kiss on her forehead, and saw Hancock’s frown from the corner of his eye.

“But me no buts, Fahr. You know where to find me.” He turned to Hancock. “As long as that house is still mine, of course.”

“Whatever, man. Go on, get out of my face, you’re harshin’ my high.”

“You know where to find me,” he repeated to Fahrenheit, with a smile. “So come find me.”

And he left.

***

Being on the open road alone had never bothered Thaniel. He was a trained soldier, he was a marksman and a tracker. He was stealthy and capable of building a decently protected camp with nothing more than some landmines and a clapping monkey trap. But he'd gotten used to having a companion in the last few days.

Hell, maybe it was more like the last few months.

He'd always prided himself on being a loner, but just then, looking up at the stars through the branches of a dead twisted tree, he was lonely. The long walk from Goodneighbor to Sanctuary Hills seemed to take longer than usual and he didn't like knowing that it was because he had no one to talk to, no one to help. He knew it was his own fault. He'd left without telling her goodbye, or asking if she wanted to come along. He had his reasons. He told Hancock – and her – that he was going to do better. There was no better time than the present to get started.

“Preston,” he greeted the Minuteman when he found him.

“Thaniel,” Garvey answered, his eyes wary. “You look like you have something on your mind.”

“That settlement you wanted me to go to, are they still asking for help?”

A smile broke out on Preston's face and he nodded. “Yeah, they are. You ready?”

“I am. Wanna come with me? I need your help in this.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“All right.”

The first steps were going to be hard, he knew. But it was time to take them. He shouldered his pack, unholstered his gun and walked with Preston to Tenpines.


	5. Chapter 5

Thaniel was tired and dirty when he finally trudged through the gate to Goodneighbor and up the alley to his house. He wanted a hot shower, a bottle of bourbon and something to eat. Not much else. It felt like months since he'd set foot in the ghoul friendly town, although it had only probably been weeks. Still, a lot can change in that time.

He was General of the Minutemen now, with six settlements flying his flag and a newly recaptured Castle to rebuild. He also had a lead on his son. He stood under the weak spray of his shower and replayed the fight with Kellogg in his head.

“ _God, you're persistent. It's the way a father should be, the way I'd be, I like to think, if the roles were reversed_.” Kellogg's parting words echoed in his mind. “ _You open the closet and it's just a closet. You never see the monster inside...until it's too late_.”

He was no different than that monster, he knew. He was ruthless, driven and cold. He was trying his best not to become the kind of man he had just put down without a second thought, but it was hard. It was a daily battle. And no one knew what it was like, not Preston, not Nick, not Cait. Only Hancock knew what it was like to be the face of fear. Only Fahr knew what it was like to choose to stay with that face out of loyalty to something greater.

He hoped he could inspire it in himself.

He toweled off and dressed comfortably in just a pair of ratty old jeans, snagged a bottle from the liquor cabinet and slouched on the wraparound sofa with it. He'd just lifted the bottle to his lips when he heard the door open and close below. Something like a grin crossed his face.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Fahr drawled when she reached the top of the stairs and leaned against the wall. She looked smaller without all her armor in place.

“Hi, sweetheart.” She gave him a warning look and he let out the grin. She shook her head as she returned it.

“Been hearing rumors about you,” she said.

“Good or bad?”

“Good, surprisingly. Sounds like you finally got your head outta your ass.”

“I'm trying.” She crossed the room and settled at the far end of the sofa, lighting a cigarette.

“Wanna tell me?”

He shrugged. “What's to tell? I said I needed to do better, so I'm doing it. Reclaiming the wasteland in the name of the Minutemen.” He saluted her with the bottle and drank from it.

“Scorn isn't a great look, ya know. Especially since I know it's fake.”

“Enough about that, Fahr. Why are you here?”

“You said I knew where to find you. So I did.”

“So you did. Now what?”

She made an exasperated sound and stubbed out her smoke. “You really are hardheaded, aren't you?”

She got up from the sofa and came over to stand between his spread knees, staring down at him. He looked back up at her and beneath her icy expression his admittedly false scorn faded away to nothing. They could play games all they wanted, but they both knew it was just a game. He smiled gently, letting the feeling of all the lives he'd changed wash over him, no matter how much stress it caused him.

“You promoted a pawn, and it changed the game,” she finally whispered, a hint of an answering smile in her voice.

“Ain't any easier.”

“I never said it would get easier.”

“No, I guess you didn't.” He capped the bottle and pushed it away before he pulled her into his lap. She surprised him by allowing it. “So, tell me what's new at this end of the map?”

“Not much. Mostly been waiting for you to come back.”

“Miss me?”

“Maybe.”

“What are you gonna do about it now that I'm here?”

“Well...”she started, pushing her hand against his chest. “That's up to you, isn't it? Where do we go from here?”

She was breathlessly close, and if for a moment he'd forgotten just how much she'd gotten under his skin, he remembered it now. He leaned into her touch, leaned into her face until he was the barest inch from her mouth. “How much can I get away with?”

“Oh, baby, you better do me right, or Hancock will have your balls.”

“How 'bout we leave him out of it, and if I don't do you right, you can take'em?”

“All right,” she agreed and pressed her lips to his.

He stood and took her hand, drawing her into the bedroom where the light from the living room shone in casting deep shadows all around the room. He undressed her slowly, taking his time, waiting for either a resounding no or a moaning yes. He got neither, but hadn't really expected them either. She wasn't a sunshine and flowers kind of woman, and he wasn't the sort of man who was good at giving them anyway.

Touches turned from lingering to firm, kisses went from yielding to hungry and when he laid her down across the bed and slid between her legs, the look in her eye told him he'd made a good start in treating her right. Her body welcomed him like a glove, wet and hot, and he was the one who groaned, resting his forehead on hers.

“Thaniel...”

“Shh, I'm enjoying this.” And he was. She was pliant in his arms, her body wrapped around him and clinging. It was still the best thing he'd felt since waking up from the ice.

“You better get on with it,” she warned. He propped himself on his elbows and flexed his hips enough to make her inhale sharply. Her body jerked as he rubbed against her pelvic bone, hitting her clit with the angle.

“Or what?” he teased.

“I'll flip you so fast you won't know what happened.”

“Is that a threat? Having you on top of me would be a dream, sweetheart.”

Fahr suited actions to words and rolled them over until she straddled him, pressing him deeper in her body, her hands braced on his chest. She picked up the pace, riding him until they were both sweaty and panting for air. He dropped his hand to where they were joined, his thumb against her clit each time she slammed down on him. When she came, her whole body tightened, drawing his cock up higher inside her, curling over him as she shuddered and gasped. With a groan, he rolled her back over before she collapsed and tunneled his hands under her hips to lift her into his thrusts. He poured into her like a flood and he never wanted it to end.

He pulled out and sank down onto the covers next to her. She rolled into his body and poked him with a sharp nailed finger. He yelped and covered her hand with his.

“Don't call me sweetheart, sweetheart.”

“All right...sweetheart.”

“Goddamnit, Thaniel, I'm no man's sweetheart.” She sounded angry, but he could see her smile. He traced it with his free hand and brought her closer to kiss her lips.

“You're mine.”

She huffed and looked like she wanted to argue, but then she dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Fine, but don't let Hancock hear it. I'll lose what little respect I've got from him.”

“All right...sweetheart.”

“Vault dwelling asshole,” she muttered.

He chuckled. “Yeah, but you like me.”

She sighed, snuggling deeper into his shoulder. “Yeah, I do.”

“Give me a minute and I can show you how much again.”

“You're on.”

 

~Fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for enjoying my rare pair!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to all my FB folks. You all helped get this out of my head immeasurably.


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